Robert Snyder wrote:
> Yeah yet another over guied Linux iso to store on my harddrive let me
> just jump around like an idiot until i hit my head on something.
>
> But thanks for giving me yet another distro to bash for being inferior
> to a much older and graceful distrobution such as slackware. But
> Xandros with out crossover office really loses it point of being free.
> These distros try to hard. They need to think harder not try to dumb
> down the interface as a quick fix.
>
>
Since the software that allows it to run Windows applications isn't freely licensed, they really can't offer Xandros OS for free with that functionality. Otherwise, they'd be out of business in a week flat.
I agree that dumbing down the interface isn't the way to go, though. It's a shame that every distro that does a really exemplary job of smoothing out the heinous tangle that installing Linux can occasionally be also is built with the philosophy that their users should be prevented from personalizing their distribution at all. What is needed is a smooth, easy interface for an installation with the gnarled back end covered over without also covering over the options for installation that an end-user will want to have some control over. At one end of the extreme, you've got distributions that don't even do a credible job of resolving package dependencies so that the user has to know beforehand what all the dependencies are to make sure none are missed, and at the other end you've got "four-click installation" that leaves you with an OS little different from a discount Windows in security and functionality. Rarely, if ever, does anyone provide something that covers over the
warts without also gutting Linux of its power.
That's really the biggest hurdle in the race to make Linux a contender in the desktop market: the distros that make things easy for new users also don't offer enough new functionality to make it worth the bother of switching OSes. It takes a dedicated computer geek to get to a point where you can really appreciate everything Linux has to offer, generally.
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